Getting Over the Yadiloh

I work when everyone else has a holiday, so I have the opposite of a holiday. That's a yadiloh.

Yesterday was the Martin Luther King yadiloh. As January's only holiday Monday, it has typically been quite busy. How might it have been this year, with the best snow in several seasons, if the New England Patriots had not had a big game on Sunday? It was busier than the past two pathetic years, but never quite the human tidal wave we've faced in years with fewer distractions.

The economy is a factor. While the analysts debate whether we are actually in a recession, the consumers who already know they are don't have the funds to take off for the weekend. Of the ones who do show up, at least half will look without buying, while the other group doesn't have to worry about money now or ever. Those with no money worries will divide into easy spenders and exhausting chiselers. To complicate matters, we still have little to sell anyway. If we have the sizes of ski or boot, great. But we could get someone all ready to gear up and then have to send them on a scavenger hunt over a 50-mile radius to look for things we have convinced them they should choose.

At least the skiing is good. The temperature stayed in winter ranges all three days of the holiday weekend. Monday's wind challenged skiers crossing open areas, and blew loose snow and tree debris into the tracks, but overall it was still good. You just have to laugh about the slips and staggers interrupting your perfect form as you run over beech leaves, evergreen sprigs and little-bitty hemlock cones.